Nationwide DOUBLES card payments in fresh banking gaffe

That'll be £20, please. That'll be £20, please

Nationwide customers are furious after debit card payments were taken from their accounts twice this week.

Britain's biggest building society has admitted a technical cock-up led to current account holders being charged double for purchases made by card. A spokesperson told The Register some debit card charges that were processed on July 24 went through the system again today, pushing some people over their account limits.

"We'd like to assure customers that they won't be financially disadvantaged," spokesperson said, adding that any charges incurred would be refunded. Customers who have gone over their overdraft limit and have no money for the day should go into a branch or get in touch to get cash.

The spokesperson said the issue was down to "human error" but would not elaborate further. The building society expects payments to be refunded overnight.

The institution's Twitter handle for queries @AskNationwide was bombarded with enraged customer complaints.

"Apologies won't put petrol in my car or buy food, quick enough to take it out but no help when you mess up!" yelled one punter.

"Nationwide are the most incompetent bank EVER, how can my acc with no overdraft be in minus because they been charging everyone twice!" another customer exploded.

After the RBS fiasco and both Santander and Barclays online banking suffering outages, not to mention high levels of fury over the global recession, let's just say banks are not on anyone's Christmas card list. ®